


Cold Comfort

by SingleWhiteCatLady



Series: Plotgrenades [2]
Category: Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: D/s as a form of therapy, D/s relationship, Dom!Furiosa, Don't Judge Me, F/M, Feral!Max, Hurt!Max, I am a HORRIBLE PERSON, I am a cruel heartless person, M/M, Poor Max, Slavery, Sub!Max, allusions to rape, muzzle fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 19:27:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5978449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingleWhiteCatLady/pseuds/SingleWhiteCatLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max goes Feral with fear and guilt, Furiosa helps him recover by taking control and helping him piece himself back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> (Max is taken my slavers shortly after leaving the Citadel at the end of Fury Road. He escapes or is found much later and winds up chained in Furiosa's room because he's gone completely feral. Furiosa has to bring him back to humanity with D/s.)

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0-0-0

 

0-0-0

 

He’s not the same. When she sees him again there’s nothing of the man who’d saved her life, nothing of the person he’d been.

 

There is just the Feral. Chained and bleeding and fighting for his life against a collar lined with sharp metal shards.

 

They’ve had him for a while, if the length of his hair and beard, and the thinness of his body is any indication. There is blood on his shirt, running from his mouth and nose, and he’s holding his weight off his left leg, body curled inward as one of the slavers rushes forward with a long metal pole.

 

At first she thought it was an electric prod, but then the sunlight caught the tip and she realized that the shine wasn’t electricity jumping between the prongs of an electrode, it was the gleam of a blade, a spear.

 

Her breath caught in her throat voiceless and as she watched the blade caught flesh just below his ribs.

 

He jerked with it and stumbled back with a snarl—more animal than man—strained against the collar and snapped his teeth at his attacker.

 

“STOP!” She lunged for the ringleader, a man fatter and better dressed than those holding the ends of the chains, tangled her metal fingers in his shirt and pulled; “What do you think you’re doing!”

 

The spear holder yanked their weapon free and Furiosa watched from the corner of her eye as Max buckled, knees hitting the sand hard. The spear tip was dark with blood and dripping, she felt rage bubbling up from within her, some dark pit she’d thought long covered over. “Stop this now or your men won’t live to see moonrise!”

 

The slaver bristled visibly, looked her up and down and turned his yellowed eyes to Max; “He’s feral—Raging mad! I’m doing him a favor! Nobody wants a slave that would sooner tear their throats out with its teeth—“

 

Max snarled and strained against the chains again trying to get to him.

 

Furiosa’s lips rolled back.

 

“—He’s dangerous. Too broken to work, too mad to realize his place! I’ve spent hundreds of days trying to civilize him and it’s pointless!”

 

Max was swaying now, but still fighting, arms held together high behind his back with shackles and wires that cut deeply into his hands and shoulders through the worn material of his shirt.

 

“Where did you find him?” Furiosa wanted to shake this man, clench her fingers until his throat crushed. The wet pop and crunch of breaking bone and tearing cartilage. Bubbling wheeze of his last breath—

 

“Desert Riders, six days west from here. About three-hundred days ago.”

 

Her insides shook.

 

Three-hundred days ago… He hadn’t made it very far at all, had he.

 

“Give him to me.”

 

“My Lady—“ He spluttered; “It’s a FERAL! He’s useless! I’ve tried everything! Beatings, withholding food and water, I spared NOTHING and he fought everything—He’s useless!”

 

“Give. Him. To. Me.”

 

The man visibly shrank away from her. He flicked his eyes to the spear man and the weapon drew away. The bare fact that they didn’t ask for payment told Furiosa all she needed to know. They were scared, and they just wanted rid of him. They were also too aware of the legitimacy of her threat to try and sweeten the deal in their favor.

 

He was listing dangerously now, held aloft by his throat and the men holding his chains. His breath wheezed, choked gags, and the blood on his shirtfront was spreading in a wide black patch halfway to his knees. For the first time since she’d noticed him, when she saw his eyes there was something more than rage and mindlessness in them. There was confusion, fear, and need.

 

She walked right up to him and pulled the lead chain from one of the slaver’s men. She crouched and peeled up his shirt to gauge the pointlessness of this endeavor against the severity of the wound.

 

She feared a clean stab, right into his abdomen—but was relieved to see a long jagged tear. The blade had been turned upward, caught his lowest rib and skidded across it. It was bleeding heavily but there was no frothing of lost air, no spill of bloody intestines. She lifted her eyes from the wound, relief a balm to her rage—and had only an instant to see the glazed blue of his eyes before his head rocked forward, the metal cage over his mouth colliding with her cheek.

 

Her head snapped back with enough force that she saw silver specks like the dust from a grinding wheel and she heard her crew cry out in rage, the shocked, fearful gasps of the slaver’s men and the rattle of guns raising.

 

“HOLD!” She barely got it out, scurrying back with her left eye unfocused from the blow and a cool wet sluice of blood washing down the side of her face; “HOLD!”

 

Nobody moved, nobody but Max who continued to weakly struggle and snarl and gnash his teeth, swaying more violently with each passing moment.

 

She eased herself to her feet, pressed the back of her wrist to her face and jerked her chin toward the shackled man, eyes on her crew; “Get him to the rig. Tie him up—NO CHAINS! NO BLOOD! YOU DON’T HURT HIM, UNDERSTAND ME?”

 

They looked as if they would rather put a bullet in his head and leave him for the crows to pick clean. But, begrudgingly, they moved to do as she’d bid them. Taking over the chains the slaver’s men were holding, forcing Max to his feet, mercilessly dragging him when his knees failed until his feet were under him once more.

 

He lost consciousness completely before they made it to the rig, his legs dragging two full meters before her crew realized this wasn’t a new tactic and they were effectively choking him with the collar.

 

It was only once they’d lowered him to the sand that Furiosa could get close enough to actually look at the torture device they’d attached to his head.

 

It was more complicated than the muzzles they’d once used at the Citadel. This one pressed up against his chin, preventing his mouth from being opened more than enough to pour water into. Thick and squat across the lower half of his face and covered in a sturdy wire mesh. The collar was older, rusty. A ring through which sharp spikes were pressed, jabbing bloody craters into his neck from all directions. Six rings welded to the outside with connected chains so he could be held at excessive lengths, taut between six points. Like the spokes on the inside of a gear.

 

The sleeves over his forearms were similarly constructed two tubes welded together with spikes on the inner edges, held shut and locked with a long bar with chain on each end. Wire wound around his fingers to keep his hands from grabbing, twisted across his shoulders so they couldn’t be worked off

 

There was a consensus, in spite of her orders, and he was tied roughly, ankles and shins and knees and thighs with lengths of chain looped through, expressing constant pressure on his neck and wrists and around his chest.

 

They didn’t put him in the rig, which Furiosa was both upset and relieve about, instead he was tied in the cargo box amid their crates of bartered salvage.

 

It would take three days to reach the Citadel, and the idea of it felt like a stretch of eternity.

 

For the first three hours of the journey he was silent.

 

Not long after that though, a face appeared in her window, “Your wild man’s pitching a fit. Should I knock him out?”

 

She hesitated, shook her head, “Take over,” She eased herself out of the seat and out the passenger door.

 

“Boss?” A voice from above, curious.

 

“He’s awake.”

 

“Need backup?”

 

Her lips formed the word ‘no’ but it didn’t come out. Instead she breathed in and nodded; “Yeah.”

 

He wasn’t making any noise. But there was blood smeared everywhere he’d been. Splattered on the wall, smeared on the floor and the pad of cushions she’d insisted he be put on.

 

The two boys still there had their guns trained on him when Furiosa shoved up the hatch and crawled in.

 

Max snarls.

 

It’s a pathetic noise, but it holds promise of violence unrestrained so Furiosa stays back, lets him see her in the dim light of the hold, lets him take a moment to try and recognize her.

 

He’s butted himself up in the corner with his feet like weapons between his body and the boys. Furiosa is sure if she got too close too quickly he’d try to kick her head off, wound or no.

 

She gestures behind herself and the boys lower their weapons, watch discontentedly as she approaches the Feral.

 

“Max,” She says, softly.

 

He doesn’t so much as flinch. Pulls himself up tighter the closer she gets, scrunches his thin, bound body into a shape as close to a ball as he can manage. He whimpers audibly and turns his face away.

 

Furiosa keeps her metal hand up, just in case, but reaches forward with her flesh one, presses the tips of her fingers into the tangled mess of hair on his head. Pets gently—smoothly.

 

He snarls and bares his teeth and every muscle in his body is so tightly wound he’s like a spring about to snap.

 

It’s a hollow reaction, one born out of fear and mindlessness. Furiosa retracts her hand long enough to unclip her canteen from the back of her belt and loosen the cap. She makes sure his eyes are on her—wild and large as they may be—and takes a slow drink. Lets a few drops of water rest on her lips and chin a moment before she wipes them away. Lets him know what’s in there without speaking. She isn’t so sure he has the strength of capacity to understand words at this moment. He’s too high strung.

 

He doesn’t move, but his eyes are locked on the flask. Gears whirring in his head, weighing the benefits of trying to take it against the knowledge that his hands and legs are bound so tightly and securely he couldn’t move without crippling himself.

 

Furiosa scuttles forward another step, crouched so her knees are nearly to her armpits. She makes a shushing noise when he draws himself up again with a gasp, eyes widening in fear, and risks speaking. She keeps her voice low, uses small words.

 

“It’s OK. Water? Want some water?” She shifts a little closer and sees him pull himself up to spring and so she stops. “I’ll stay right here… You can have some. You don’t have to do anything but nod.”

 

His eyes flick to the boys at her back and he forces his knees closer to his chin—The wound in his side is still bleeding—it’s dark and thick and clots in great gummy gobs against his shirt and skin and the cushions around him. He’s dehydrated and scared and Furiosa doesn’t know how to ease that right now. She just knows that if she doesn’t get water into him soon, doesn’t get that wound bandaged he could put himself into shock simply from fear.

 

“Max. If you want some water you have to nod.”

 

His eyes skim over her, then back to the boys. He doesn’t move.

 

“They won’t touch you. They won’t touch you unless you try to hurt me.”

 

He doesn’t seem convinced, rests his temple against the nearest crate, eyes still shifting from pale painted face to pale painted face with desperation and malice.

 

Furiosa swallows a painful knot in her throat; “Max did those men—Did the slaver hurt you,” Beatings and whippings and torture were obvious. It was the other things. The implied things when the fat man had said ‘Everything’ that made Furiosa’s skin crawl. Made it imperative that she get him out of there immediately without negotiation.

 

Max didn’t move, but his eyes lingered on her when they skimmed past, dark, tired, and defiant. His jaw twitched and his breath shuddered when he drew it in.

 

Furiosa nodded slowly and without looking away spoke to the men behind her. “All of you leave. Now.”

 

“Boss—“

 

“Now,” She didn’t have to shout for them to know it was an order, didn’t have to snarl and snap at them cruelly. One by one they crawled through the trap door and gathered on roosts along the top of the rig and tanker, awaiting her call to return.

 

Max remained still and drawn tight, didn’t at first seem phased by their leaving. He was still for a handful of moments once they were gone—and then the shivering started. A whine—so small she barely heard it over the roar of the road, and Furiosa moved cautiously forward again. Lifted the canteen and dribbled a bit over the mesh of the muzzle.

 

His mouth opened as far as it could—not even far enough to push his tongue between his teeth. He sucked in as much as he could, body shaking in earnest now. Convulsive tremors and quick, urgent moans.

 

“You’re okay now. You’re okay. Try not to struggle,” She poured more water through the mesh, heard him slurping at it, choking—but he kept swallowing. Snarling when she stopped the stream.

 

She snarled back at him, showed her teeth because some instinct said that’s all he could understand for now and if she wanted any chance of bringing him back to himself she had to show dominance. Had to push down the animal rage of him or he would lunge for her throat the first chance he got.

 

He met her eyes, wild and hurt and his lips were rolled back from his teeth, wet and pink with blood. He held the expression for a long time, body shaking harder with every passing second—

 

She knew when it happened, knew because the defiance in his eyes weakened, clouded, and was washed away by desperation. Water. He needed the water. She had him cornered and trapped and unable to defend himself. There was no practical sense fighting back when all it would do is kill him faster.

 

Furiosa held the stance until his eyes dropped and he whined in defeat. Then she moved forward and poured more water into his mouth. “Good… That was good,” She stopped the stream a few more times, not to tease him or assert her dominance, but because he needed air—would have kept swallowing in spite of it and choked to death.

 

When the canteen was almost empty she withdrew it, settled it aside and pressed her palm to his head, stroked back over his hair and the exposed portion of his jaw and ear. “That’s good. Very good.”

 

His reaction to the words was unreadable, he seemed cowed by them and shrank inward a little more.

 

“I need to look at your wound… Can you lie down?”

 

He didn’t move, didn’t react as if he’d heard her at all.

 

She shook her head and pushed at his knee with her false hand, lifted her living one to form to the curve of his ribs above the wound.

 

He didn’t move willingly, and loathe as she was to force him she had no choice, caught a chain at the front of the collar and tugged. Heard a sharp whine and his legs shook as they straightened, body sliding down the edge of the nearest crate.

 

“Don’t move,” She shifted to her feet and went to the opposite wall, took down a leather satchel stored in a hollow niche and returned to his side.

 

He eyed the case warily, body coiled to lunge at her or away.

 

There were bandages inside, strong spirits for disinfectant, a pot of salve the Earth Mothers had made. Max lie stiff as steel against the pallet as she moved. Growled and flinched as she cleaned the wound—Arched up with a breathy cry when she splashed it with disinfectant. He went limp after a while, lie there in a daze with his lids open to slits, breath whistling in and out of his mouth and nose.

 

Furiosa was by no means Medical, but she knew how to stitch. It wasn’t pretty, wasn’t the clean tiny single stitches like the Mercy Mother made. But they were regular and strong. A long line of continuous blanket stitches from one end of the wound to the other. She hummed while she worked. One of the songs she’d memorized in the last three-hundred and twelve days. Songs Mercy and Triumph sang to the Milkers and the Earth Mothers and the pups. Songs of days long past and magic and tales of old. Love stolen away and journeys never ending.

 

She glanced up more than once at his face and caught a haze of curiosity, his eyes locked on her as he blinked slowly through the pain.

 

He wasn’t cooperative in the least as she bound the wound, didn’t move or tighten his muscles to stay upright. She bent his head to rest between her pauldron and neck and tied the bandages as tightly as she dared.

 

She had no illusions that he would sleep, but she told him to anyway, scrubbed her hand clean on a scrap of cloth and settled against the crates by his head.

 

He seemed to rest for a while. Long enough that four of the boys filtered back into the hold. The Rig slowed to a stop to cool the engines and they passed out a ration of food and water. Walked about stretching their legs and reapplying paint to keep the sun at bay.

 

Furiosa shifted to her knees and stood and Max’s feet slammed into the floor shoved himself up into the corner. From Zero to Sixty in the time it took her to draw breath.

 

The boy across from him who’d been opening his mouth to shove in a chunk of dried apple cried out in alarm and threw a knife.

 

The blade embedded in the wood of a crate barely two inches from Max’s throat and that was it.

 

Max roared and started thrashing wildly and the Boy lunged to his feet, food forgotten, another knife in his hand.

 

“STOP! HOLD! FUCKITALL HOLD!” Furiosa grabbed the boy and knocked the knife from his grip, shoved him toward the trap door and lunged at Max, withstood another blow from his head against her face and wrapped all her limbs around him—Squeezed until he screamed in futility and sucked in a rasping lungful of air to hold and strain against in an effort to get his arms free.

 

Furiosa could feel the blood from the wire wrapped around his hands and arms. Knew if she didn’t stop him he’d cripple himself.

 

The choice was taken from her however, as the first boy through the hatch was wielding a rifle. He scanned the fray with wide amber eyes and smashed the stock into Max’s head, knocking him out cold.

 

Furiosa wanted to be angry, wanted to shout and thrash him, but she couldn’t. She would have done the same thing if she’d had her arms free. She rolled, spilled Max onto his face on the cushions and left him there for as long as it took her to regain her breath and prod the bruise growing around her eye. It was already starting to swell. “I need wire cutters. And get Dullet in her.”

 

Dullet was young. Not much more than a Pup, but he was a quick study, could get his small hands into places Furiosa couldn’t and with his help she was able to get the wire from Max’s hands and arms. She splashed the cuts with antiseptic and rubbed salve into them, then watched Dullet bind each finger.

 

The sleeves had to go. A pair of bold cutters to the locks and chains holding them in place and Max’s arms flopped stiff and useless against the pallet.

 

Dullet took pieces of linen, sewed quick bags and stitched them around Max’s hands like the mittens Furiosa had seen on babies to keep them from scratching their own eyes out, or to keep the cooks hands from blistering handling hot pans and pots.

 

The child used more bandages and wrapped Max’s forearms together in front of his body, then bound his upper arms to his chest. A soft, but merciless restraint.

 

The collar was the next to go, Furiosa cut the lock and it took three people to unbend it from Max’s neck as the hinge had rusted and frozen shut.

 

“Leave the muzzle on—“ She hated to do it, but he’d tried to bite her twice now and bites never did heal right.

 

Dullet cleaned the wounds on his throat and rubbed in salve, wrapped a thick pad of bandages loosely around them and cleaned the cut on Max’s brow.

 

Max laid there like a dead thing for a long while, until well after the sun had sunk below the horizon and the earth had grown dark and chill. He woke slow and disorientated, growled and snarled weakly and thrashed his head back and forth.

 

There were no familiar faces around him, nothing but pale black eyed Boys staring at him with their hands on their weapons.

 

He couldn’t move, felt nauseated and weak, but he had to fight. He couldn’t let them win. If they got too close he’d fight with everything he had. He’d make it difficult for them. It was all he had left, the ability to be a minor inconvenience while they had their fun. All he had was his ability to voice his hatred and anger and rage.

 

But the boys didn’t come at him. Not yet. He knew they would, they always did. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down. He had to figure out a way to get free. He strained against the bindings on his arms, tried to claw and tear but his fingers BURNED and when he looked down they’d been bandaged and he could only see their shapes beneath the linen, swollen and spotting with blood in the hinges of his joints.

 

He fought to stay awake as long as possible. He could go three days without sleep—before he started hallucinating and lost the ability to think clearly. He had to pick his battles. Had to be ready to run, to fight—to FLEE.

 

The rig rumbled to a stop at about midday. He figured it was midday because the boys rationed out water and food and they were muscled and healthy enough to get two meals a day.

 

Max’s stomach ached, cramped—and finally rebelled.

 

“Boss!” One of the boys shrieked.

 

Max was too busy trying not to drown in bile. Had enough of his wits about him to struggle against the hands that grabbed him. The bite of a metal clamp into the cloth binding his arms down, a cool flesh hand across his brow keeping his head elevated.

 

The smell was bitter, acidic—caught in the hair of his beard and in the mesh of the muzzle, every time he breathed it was there, wet and sticking to his nostrils and lips and he couldn’t get away from it.

 

Cool water splashed across the back of his neck, clenched all his muscles and suddenly the dizziness and nausea tightened into a hard knot at the base of his skull, a drill of pressure and tension and he briefly lost consciousness. Came back to himself and the muzzle was gone—Oh, it was GONE!

 

He snapped his teeth, howled and snarled and hissed and fought. They’d taken his body, his dignity but he’d be dead before he let them near his mouth—Had bitten the first schlanger that had tried clean off!

 

Furiosa gasped and snatched her fingers back, reacted without thought and struck him hard in the jaw with her balled up fist. He went limp in a daze and shook himself. Shook himself again and his eyes rolled.

 

Hands on his head, holding him still, too gray and dizzy to fight back, the tug and sawing motion of a knife through the hair on his chin and upper lip. It hurt—but at least nobody was trying to force anything in there yet. Not yet.

 

Save your strength.

 

A cloth batted against his face and the knife returned, sheering him down. Words only now filtering in; “It’s just me. Try not to move, Max. I’m getting sick of you trying to bite me.”

 

He rolled his lips back from his teeth in warning but the gesture was too weak to hold as much threat as he intended.

 

He didn’t dare open his eyes. The world was tilting and swaying violently and he knew if he did he’d lose what control he had over himself.

 

“Here, drink.”

 

The round lip of a bottle was pressed to his mouth and water spilled in. He swallowed greedily, felt some leaking out down the sides of his face but didn’t let himself dwell on what he couldn’t control. He drank until the bottle was taken away and a coarse cloth was swiped across his mouth.

 

Something butted the end of his sore nose and he clenched his jaws, pursed his lips defensively. His nostrils were still clogged with blood, but he found the smell. Salty, dry, spiced—

 

His mouth watered.

 

“It’s just bread. If you don’t bite me you can have some more.”

 

His jaws didn’t unclench. He wanted it—wanted the bread, but he couldn’t make himself open his mouth. Whimpered and felt his toes curling and uncurling helplessly.

 

“Max, it’s just bread.”

 

He pried one eye open and peered out, found her face and the face of a child hovering nearby. He had a black stripe across his face and a set of three green stripes across the hairless dome of his head. Too young to know what kind of horrors a man could visit on another human being when they were desperate and hurt.

 

Furiosa nudged his mouth with the bit of bread again, hummed encouragingly when his lips parted and he let her press it inward. She pulled her fingers out quickly wary of the hard gate of his teeth and watched him chew, watched his face seem to collapse. Brows tilting up, breath quick—A whimper. He opened his mouth again, urgently and she put more bread in, felt his teeth graze her fingertip and flipped his nose harshly with a warning growl.

 

He whined, tears in his eyes, and swallowed waited until he saw her hand retreat before he closed his mouth again.

 

“Why’s he so soft with you but tries to rip at the others?”

 

Furiosa swallowed and forced herself to breathe before she spoke; “Because men hurt him. A woman hasn’t hurt him like that before—and he knows me. He knows I won’t hurt him, even if he’s scared of it right now.”

 

Dullet nodded and watched the Boss feed the Feral half a dried roll of Tomato bread then took over when she handed it to him. Pulled off pieces and dropped them into his mouth. He didn’t like the idea of letting his tiny fingers get near those teeth. Maybe he was afeared and soft, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d rather be afeared than have missing fingers when the Feral snapped them.

 

The Boss put the muzzle back on when the roll was gone and the Feral tried to fight her off but she spoke in her low voice; “It’s for your protection,” She said, “Nobody can get near your mouth if you’re wearing it and I’ve got the key, alright?” She held up the new lock and the Feral stared at it. After a minute he went still and she put the muzzle back on, locked it and put the key in her pocket. She crawled out of the hold and spoke firmly to the Boys; “Nobody touches him. Don’t go near him—And if you’ve got to keep a hand on your weapon don’ look at him when you do it—He’s scared. Treat him like he’s scared not a threat.”

 

“He’s a threat because he is scared. He’s unpredictable—He could rip out our throats!”

 

“He won’t. Not unless you threaten him. He’s defensive, just—try. Try to do this and if it doesn’t work I’ll think of something else.”

 

“What if he’s sick again?”

 

“Dullet knows what to do.”

 

And that was the end of the conversation. Four boys crawled back into the hold.

 

They couldn’t help but watch him, but they tried not to look at him, tried not to meet his eyes. Their hands skirted everywhere but their weapons.

 

Max didn’t move. Stayed shrunk up in the corner as far as he could manage without pulling his stitches. Dullet sat on the pallet at his feet, fiddled with a bent metal puzzle. Managed to untangle it into three pieces, then put it back together and did it again.

 

The Rig moved without incident, passed from the mountains into the Dunes and slowed to a stop.

 

The boys climbed out of the hold but Dullet stayed, peered out the hatch and spoke to Furiosa softly. “No, he was still. Didn’t fight.”

 

Two Boys climbed into the rig and slid open a drop hatch in the belly near where Max was lying. He wondered, briefly, if he could untangle himself and flee—how far he would make it before they shot him and dragged him back, or just shot him and left him for dead.

 

But there were other faces now, other voices. Rough and heavily accented. Crates of fruit and vegetables were passed down and crates of parts were passed up. A goat was passed up, its legs bound and its teats heavy with milk. A moment later two baby goats were passed up as well, limbs bound to their tiny fat bodies. At the far end of the tanker Max heard the bubbling and slosh of liquid being drained away. The exchange took about two hours, judging by the shift of the light in the open hatch at the front of the tanker. The goats bleated and nuzzled their mother’s teat.

 

Max felt a growing sense of vertigo, spinning and dizziness. Clamped his eyes shut and tried to breathe. The sound was growing louder and louder, the clamor of voices and the chug of water out of the tanks. His stomach rolled and he fought to keep his gall down.

 

Then the sliding hatch was shut and the four Boys climbed back in the hold.

 

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End file.
